


Her Broken Wings

by Deejaymil



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: A little bit kinky oops, Dubious Morality, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, I'm still the most vanilla of smut writers, Identity Issues, Undercover, dark themes, minor bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-08
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2018-09-07 07:09:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8788474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deejaymil/pseuds/Deejaymil
Summary: She's tied to a couch waiting for a man she's pretty sure she hates, despite the fact she's falling in love with him. There's a cage of birds hanging nearby on a gilded hook. She's jealous of them because at least their captivity is explicit.All in all, when Elizabeth Prentiss had told her at seventeen that she was 'going wrong', she probably never imagined this.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [greeneyedconstellations](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greeneyedconstellations/gifts).



> Prompt fill for the /r/fanfiction December prompts Random Word Challenge, run by the wonderful Tafferling
> 
> This month's words were: 'hot, gimmick, captivity'

There was very little that Emily remembered of being seventeen: just a blurry rush of memories that were indistinct and only discernible by bad choices, bad tastes, bad judgements. _Going wrong_ , her mother had called it, although Emily suspected she’d been saying that since the first tottering step a simpler-Emily had taken, just unsteady enough that her mother likely declared her _impractical._ Seventeen was a whirl of memories, and one very vivid snapshot.

 _Do you know what a gimmick is?_ a teacher had asked her, in what would turn out to be her last week at that school, a common enough occurrence. Emily had shrugged, rolling her eyes and grinning at her temporary peers with her black lips and hair styled to draw attention away from the misery she knew showed on her face to anyone paying attention. _It’s something of little value designed to standout from much more deserving competitors._ He’d twitched a lock of her styled hair, frowned, turned away. _What are you drawing attention away from, Emily?_

She’d assumed, with all the ingrained cockiness of even the most insecure of teenagers, that he was jealous. Jealous that she had the freedom to be herself, jealous that he was stuck in his static life while she was younger, freer, _more_.

But, after leaving her mom and high school behind, she’d left the hair and the black makeup as well. There were other ways to hide despair.

She never forgot this definition, oddly enough, and it did come in handy again. When she needed to standout or push herself forward. She built herself around being a gimmick. Multiple languages, multiple faces, _I compartmentalize well._ An agent, a politician: she could be all of them if needed.

A traitor.

Ian Doyle delighted in gimmicks. He kept a cage of exotic birds in a room with wide-ranged windows. Wings unclipped, the cage swung in the salt-sea breeze that coaxed in through that open divide, and they spent their days staring at the sky. Emily hated the heat of Greece—much preferring the villa in France—but hated more that this room with its cool breeze and marble floors was the only place to seek respite. The silence in there was painful, the birds mute.

“Why do you cage them where they can see what they’re missing out on?” she’d asked once, harshly, and that was a fuck up, really, because Lauren wouldn’t care for the happiness of a few captive animals. “It seems cruel.”

“The light shows them off nicely,” he’d lied, his sharp-smile carving his face into the man she was hunting instead of the man who hunted her, and she read deeper. Saw the glee in his eyes when the wind tossed the silver cage, the birds beating their wings frantically as though to scream _I can’t_ at that implicit invitation to fly. Saw his fingers trail on the catch, checking it twice, their lives in his hands.

And it was her job, to read him, to please him and lull him, and she saw her chance. These birds were a gimmick. Just like the horse he kept and never rode—a symbol of power—, the stunning gardens others tended—they drew the eye away from the villa, away from the heart of his cruelty—, just like the child he claimed was another’s—this is what I _could_ offer you, if you play my game.

She played his game. Found that she didn’t actually _mind_ playing this game, and wasn’t that a disconcerting thing to learn. Found a gimmick. Offered him what he needed, weapons and intel, and also what he wanted; finding a bracelet made of intertwined leather, supple and strong, and playing a rudimentary version of cat’s cradle with it whenever they were in eyesight. She was captive anyway, a pet Lauren Reynolds at the leash of either Doyle or Clyde—some feminist—so she may as well be collared.

It worked. It drew his eye. That cold-cunning eye that she both feared and revelled under. And she tucked away Emily Prentiss, who’d spent her childhood proving she couldn’t be tied down, and turned herself into a gimmick. Just another bird to add to his glittering, captive collection.

It was hot this afternoon. Hot and airless and she found her way to the bird’s room, found him there. Watching the birds as they flicked water on themselves, clicking claws scratching on the messy floor of their cage. _Scri-sci-sci_ , and they opened their mouths to pant and didn’t make a sound. She found the bracelet, curled on the couch with sweat in her eyes, and she played. Wrapped, unwrapped. Left a mark, the promise of what could be a bruise if she pushed a little harder. Saw his eyes on it. Wrapped again, tightened, paused.

Just a gimmick. An outward show of something novel, hiding the mediocrity within.

He poured wine, thick and red and splashing over the side of her glass to stain the white tablecloth with a simple pattern. Mundane. Nothing like this moment, this moment that teetered on the edge of destroying her. _What are you drawing attention away from, Lauren?_ she asked herself, and pulled the leather tight. Fingers on her wrist, on the strap, his eyes boring into hers. Too close, too sharp, and if he looked hard enough maybe he’d see Emily lurking deep within them. “Problem?” she asked, smiling like Lauren.

“Do you like this?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow, and dragged the leather tight. Tighter than she had, cutting cruelly into fragile skin and taking with it her ability to breathe. Her fingers tingled, her hand curling, and she swallowed and saw him mirror the move. “You do it often enough.” Sweat beaded down his cheek, resting on his lip, and she watched him lick it off with a pink flash of hungry tongue. They were dressed light, in cool clothes that draped and clung, and he was hard. A thick shape under the fabric of his pants, as he moved closer, straddled her, his other hand finding her free wrist. Pinned.

“Not as much as you do, obviously,” she sniped, wriggling under him, sweaty and hot and slick. She could escape. His grip wasn’t strong.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to. _I go above and beyond_ , she’d proudly told Interpol when they’d hired her, and wasn’t that true. Wasn’t she proving it now? _Just doing the job. Fucking for the cause. What’s one woman’s pride when it comes to the cause?_ ‘Going native’, they called it. Fucking for information. _Have you gone native yet?_ they’d ask, and titter behind their hands whatever she answered.

“Like this?” he asked, and released the leather, holding it in his wide, cruel hands. Wide hands with narrow fingers, more at home on a gun than anything kinder. “Not really. It’s easily broken.” He snapped it, the noise thudding into her stomach and her heart with a gut-dropping wrench of desire-edged fear. Wide hands with narrow fingers that flicked agilely over his belt, the buckle and the studs, undoing it and dragging it free with a noise like her life ending. _Sshshshhhhh_ it said, as it whispered free, _I’m your undoing_.

She didn’t reply to the belt’s promise, not even when he brought her wrists together over her head, tying her to the arm of the couch with practised movements, tightly enough that she could feel the bones in her wrist grinding together. The discomfort went straight between her hips, and she’d never admit that.

“Much better,” he said, his voice sharp like a knife, like a promise of pain, and hooked his fingers through her waistband. She watched him, silent, wanting more and less and nothing all at once.

A bird wing struck the side of the cage, the metal clinging gently on its hook.

Slow and painful, he drew her shorts off, her underwear, leaving her bare from the waist down. Eyes flickering closed, because she was fucking gagging for it by this point and burning with that knowledge, she panted harshly with a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and opened them to see him studying her openly, palming himself through his pants.

“Such a slut,” he commented, looking pleased nonetheless, and she stared him down and hated him just a little, just like he liked it. He chuckled; a deep throb of a noise, and left her there. Bare to the world, and she struggled for a heartbeat against the leather belt as his footsteps faded and the panic pressed down on her chest. Gasping, choking, every minute that passed set her heart to thumping, her cunt to throbbing, and she wanted him back; wanted his cold hands and cruel eyes and thick cock. Knew he’d make her beg before he gave her any of it.

She could undo the knots. She knew how, and for all his cruelty, he tied them with a release.

She didn’t.

And a small part of her, the part that was still _Emily_ and not Lauren, pointed out how far she’d fallen. She stopped struggling, arching back to stare at the red-jewelled birds as they peered back with empty, black eyes. One drooped with the heat, his head tipping forward, and the others kept their distance from their ailing companion. He suffered alone.

“Given up?” Doyle asked, his fingers tracing her ankle, and she kicked out and yelped as that hand snapped down and yanked her leg to the other end of the couch. Another belt. She stared at it, counted her breaths, and whispered _you wish._ And he ordered her, with one hand loosening the tie around her wrist just enough that she could feel her fingers waking, “Turn, gorgeous thing.” Did as he asked, because there was something soft under the cruelty, a hand on her hip guiding her around. On her knees, flushed forehead pressed to her bound wrists, he redid the buckle—captured again, but by choice this time—and did the same to her ankles. Looser, slightly, but only so he could edge her knees apart, slip his fingers between her thighs. Slip them inside her, rough and cold, too much too soon and spreading them wide.

Heat in her chest pooling to her cunt, heat in the air around that made their breathing husky and rough. Heat pressing into her as he climbed behind her, his cock bare and heavy in his hand, and followed the line of his other arm to slam it into her without so much as a warning. Startled, she rocked forward, keened at the split-open feeling, teeth clacking together and leaving her tongue and lip bloodied. Her body bowed backwards, upwards, and he rode the movement and pulled out to slam home again, grunting with the exertion, one hand caressing her side gently and the other gripping her leg hard enough that there’d be bruises shaped like his fingers in the morning. It was purely for his enjoyment, her body left strung whipcord tight and shaking, and she knew from prior experience he’d wring every last gasp from her before giving her any release.

Grunting once, he slowed, smoothed, settled into a steady, beating tempo inside her. Working her open from the inside out; all she could hear was a flick of frantic wings stirred by the noise below, the creak of strained leather, the slap of skin on skin. A distant whisper of waves. Every shove forward rapped her nose against her hands, her knees screaming and back arched.

But god, she wanted more. Cried out harshly, the noise petering into a whine.

“Do that again,” he growled, and the noise was a rumble that traveling from his cock to her cunt and she felt herself getting wetter, needier, felt his thrusts turn deep and smooth as he crested the edge and readied himself to ram home. “ _Whine_ again.” As he ordered her, his hand slipped under her sweat-clinging shirt, no bra to be found—another thing he liked and she didn’t—fingers rubbing roughly at one peaked nipple; teasing the over-sensitive skin until she was almost choking on the pain-laced pleasure. She whined, choked, came apart underneath him. Needed to come. Needed to _something_ , even as he commanded her to _beg_ in a voice like broken glass.

“Please,” she snarled, finding her strength and turning it into a command, somehow. Turned it into a purr, “ _Please_ , Ian.”

He bowed into her, nipping at her back, her shoulder-blade. “Please, what?” he rumbled into that salt-damp skin, and slid his hand slowly, down down down, until it was curled between her legs. She moaned and his cock twitched inside her. Fingers brushed her clit, oddly gentle. The shudder that followed went through her spine in a rush to get to her toes, curling them, tightening her around his throbbing warmth.

“Rude,” he hissed by her ear, and she flattened herself to the couch, knowing he was going to take it away, this pressure she needed. “That’s not how it works, is it, Lauren?”

“No,” she gritted out, huffing to blow hair from her face, her lips tangy. He was speeding up again, getting himself off by reprimanding her. Hand flexing on her back, like he’d like to strike her. She knew he wouldn’t. Not after the first time he’d tried it. One thing Lauren and Emily shared in common; it was _patronizing_ to be struck. The irony of thinking that while tied to a couch wasn’t lost on her. “It’s not. _You_ first.” _Bastard_ was implicit on the end of that sentence.

“Me first,” he growled, biting at her shoulder, pinpoints of pressure. She had to stiffen, arch, hold back a cresting push of something ending, knowing if she ignored him after his reprimand, he’d sulk for hours. He was always pliable, passive, after fucking her into oblivion. So much easier to manipulate. _Clyde would be proud._ He pushed forward again, uneven and rough now. A bird shrieked and she almost crinked her neck jerking it back to stare at the cage, light fracturing from the bars to strike her retinas. The sick bird stared at her as Ian came in a pulsing, messy rush that said everything about who she was now. She fancied there was judgement in its white-edged eyes.

He pulled free with a disgusting sound, slumped panting on her back. She closed her eyes and leaned her face against her arms, tasting copper on her lips as they brushed her wrist. Frustrated, hurting, aching, and she knew he wasn’t done with her. He was a cat. A dangerous cat with cold eyes that slipped in the house when you weren’t looking and made itself home. Pissed on all the furniture and scratched when you tried to pet it, but kept anyway. Loved anyway, somehow, and she was pretty sure that was a symptom she was in too deep.

“Impatient,” he said, as she cussed under her breath as a cramp jerked in her leg. Sticky and tender and probably going to be like that for the foreseeable future, noting the cat’s-eye satisfaction on his face as he slid to the front of the couch and crouched to peer at her face. “Gorgeous,” he added, her heart kicking once, and kissed her like she was precious. “Let’s see how well you wait.”

And she said nothing as he tucked himself away, brushing a hand against the sweat on his chin, and strode away. The lock clicked behind him as the doors swung resolutely shut, leaving her there in front of those wide-ranged windows with the birds her silent companions.

She waited ten minutes before untying herself and padding to the cage, flicking the lock free. The birds burst out; one, three, six. Vanished into the blue sky with shrill calls. The seventh lay on the floor of the cage, yellow claws curled to his red-feathered chest and eyes empty.

She knew how he felt. Just a gimmick, cast aside.

Clyde pulled her three days later, but she never forgave herself for the bird.

**Author's Note:**

> **Edited August, 2017.**


End file.
